Analysis: ‘Old friends’ Putin and Xi set for Olympic meeting as Russia moves closer to China

A summit between the two leaders, expected to take place on the day of the Opening Ceremony, comes at a pivotal moment for both sides, as the massing of Russian troops at the border with Ukraine fuels fears of an imminent invasion — an event that would be sure to overshadow China’s Olympic moment.The face-to-face will also add a new milestone in what has become an increasingly close partnership between Beijing and Moscow, as relations with the West deteriorate for both. Putin is among a small group of world leaders to attend the Games, with Western governments including the United States, Britain and Australia, having declared a diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights record. Other leaders have turned down invitations, citing Beijing’s stringent Covid-19 controls. This means Beijing 2022 will cut a sharp contrast to the city’s 2008 Summer Games, when then-US President George Bush and other Western leaders were pictured glad-handing Chinese officials while cheering on their national teams. Instead, this Olympics is set to spotlight the space that has appeared between China and the West during the intervening years, while the summit — and Putin’s top billing on a list of visiting dignitaries published by China’s Foreign Ministry — points to the closeness between the two neighboring powers.The question now being asked by many in the West is whether these Olympics will see a replay of what happened during the last time Beijing hosted an Olympics, when Russia invaded a different former Soviet state, Georgia. And as tensions continue to build on the Ukraine border all eyes will be on Putin.”It’s a very dramatic moment in Russia’s confrontation with the West and, in a way, China’s confrontation with the West,” said Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow and the chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.That it represents the first in-person meeting between the two leaders in more than two years only serves to underscore its significance. Xi has not left China since January 2020, instead relying on “cloud diplomacy,” delivering speeches at major international events and meeting foreign leaders via video link. He did not host a foreign dignitary for the entirety of 2021, as China maintained closed borders and its “zero-Covid” policy. In his last known in-person meetings, Xi welcomed Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni in Beijing in November, 2020, and prior to that held talks with visiting Pakistani President Arif Alvi in March of that year.Putin will brief his Chinese counterpart about Russia’s talks with the United States and NATO, Russian state media said last month, while the two are expected to focus on strengthening cooperation across a range of areas. Such an in-person meeting will provide an opportunity to “energize” their bilateral ties, according to Yu Bin, professor of political science at Ohio’s Wittenberg University and a senior fellow at the Russian Studies Center of the East China Normal University in Shanghai.”At the personal level, do not forget that both Putin and Xi are fans of various sports. They will enjoy the Olympics while talking about world issues,” he said, adding that China may not believe a potential invasion, as described by Western governments, is imminent.But deep questions over what may happen over Russia’s conflict with the West and in Ukraine are sure to hang over the meeting.The UN last month endorsed the customary “Olympic Truce” — a ceasefire during the Games, though Russia’s past invasion of Georgia, as well as Russian troops taking Ukraine’s Crimea region on the heels of Russia’s own winter Olympics in Sochi stand out in recent memory.But today, given the countries’ rapport, Putin may tread more lightly, according to Carnegie Moscow Center’s Gabuev.”My guess is that Russia is apprehensive of China’s sensitivities when it comes to the Opening Ceremony and maybe some part of the Olympics,” he said.”Russia wants to give it enough spotlight in the media, and it also doesn’t want to steal attention from Putin’s Xi meeting … (which reinforces the message that) even if sanctions (do) happen, Russia is not on its own, but has a partnership with another global superpower.”